Le Pain Quotidien — Restaurant in Claremont

Let me start off by saying that I have often come here with friends, family, and/or business clients and in the past, I have always enjoyed the food. I frequently order the Avocado and Lentil salad since its always been great. However, my experience today was far from that...

Upon arrival, I am told to sit anywhere thats open, but its several minutes more after seating myself of looking around to get a menu. However, I notice the party that walked in just ahead of me had their menus to start with.

I order water to drink, but again, it arrives around 5 mins later. I mean, its just water with lemon, is that hard to prepare?

Service. The girl (Sasha) who "helped" me had appeared to have an attitude to start with. No welcome, how are you? Do you need a minute to look at the menu. Just, what are you having? Oh, thats it? I'll come back to Sasha in a minute

The food. Its an avocado and lentil salad, and yes, it came with both avocados and lentils, but does less than a quarter of an unripened avocado actually count? I would say not. I had also asked for Salmon, since they offer it on the side, and for 4.99 more, I got less than 1 oz of smoked salmon. Deal right?

As I was eating my salad, I noticed something that didn't belong and what felt in my mouth like sand, gravel, or stones. The chunk that I pulled out seemed like a chunk of sand. So when I informed Sasha about this, instead of Im sorry, let me make this right, etc, etc, I got "sometimes lentils have stones in them". Seriously? Lentils can have stones in them? That is news to me, and regardless whether they can or not, Sasha's response should not have been this, but something more empathetic. My guess is that either the vegetables in my salad weren't washed thoroughly or that something was dropped on the ground. Either way, yuck

Definitely not coming back here again. Hopefully though LPQ can clean up their act for others. $20 for a salad with salmon and gravel is definitely not...

Decided to try this place for the first time. I was looking for somewhere to grab tea, a quick bite, and get work done. My server was great until the manager requested her assistance for another task then she became unattentive and never came back. I sat there for awhile and finally grabbed the help of a different server. I know it wasn't her fault though. Both servers were very kind. However, the manager who I encountered when I first walked in made me feel as if I should walk right out. She never greeted me. It took a while before she even acknowledged me or asked if I wanted a table or what I would like to order. When I told her I would dine in she just pointed to the chairs while still doing things behind the counter and said have a seat someone will come around in a moment and get your order. I don't even know if she ever looked up at me. This was the standard for the customer service she provided the entire time. Not friendly or good tableside manners at all. My only other complaint would be the flies I constantly had to fan away but this was nothing compared to the manager. I never got her name because I was ready to get out of there once I finally was able to get my check.. however she was a short lady with glasses and short red hair if I'm not mistaken. My food was delicious. I would probably go with another drink option next time but my latte smelled heavenly. I want to try this place one more time because had it not been for her it would have been a real pleasant experience. Hopefully, she is not there or has a better day because I really want to come here regularly and...

Okay so I’ve been here twice now and really not impressed. The first time I ordered avocado toast and it was just okay. This time I ordered a breakfast sandwich. The server said they might be out of the brioche, no problem let’s do sourdough. She came back later saying they’re out of sourdough and have no other bread but I could pay extra to get it on a croissant. I really couldn’t comprehend why I would need to pay extra to get the sandwich if they are out of bread. Another issue was that there were about a dozen gnats flying around our table and quite a few smashed and smeared on the window by previous guests as well. I politely let the manager know & he just shrugged it off saying that this table is the only one with the bug issue (ok if you know about the problem why even seat people here!).

Anyway a new manager came by to discuss the bread issue and she was immediately hostile. She eventually agreed to give me the sandwich on the croissant without the up charge though. But then our server never wanted to come back and check on us, which was a shame because we weren’t upset with her or rude at all. She kept sending the mean manager back over.

My sandwich ended up being really delicious on the croissant and I would definitely pay the up charge if I ever have to go back. My table mates weren’t impressed with their food unfortunately (the tomato soup was pretty similar to a chunky marinara & the egg skillet...